so i've done something a little different with this chapter - for the sake of story progression i've introduced another characters pov! don't worry, it's something i only want to do with this one chapter and there's still plenty of lou in there, but all the same i hope you like it!
p.s. i proof read this whilst at work today so if it's complete trash, please know that i am also complete trash 3
It was the kind of summer's night that Jason Stackhouse lived for.
After a long and his opinion arduous day of work he'd rocked up to Merlotte's for a well-deserved beer in the company of people he cared for most. Of course upon walking in he was bombarded with the usual questions from Sam regarding his sisters whereabouts, but like most evenings he brushed them off – Sam was overly protective and since Compton had come onto the scene it was evident to anyone with two eyes that she was a will unto her own.
Wherever she'd gotten herself too this time he was sure she'd be more than alright. She always was.
It was a bit of a slow night at first, with Hoyt walking around like the world was crumbling around him because his latest squeeze wasn't answering the phone to him. Jessica was a damn sight out of his league in Jason's opinion but he would never be cruel enough to say as much to his oldest friend, so instead of saying the truth which they were all thinking, that being that she'd just finally come to her senses and had decided to ghost him, he distracted the blubbering idiot with drinks and a game of pool – he even let him win the first round out the kindness of his heart.
He reluctantly won the following two for the sake of his pride.
After an evening of good drinks, good food and good company, Jason lazily weaved his way back home, kicking stones as he muttered the words to a happy tune he remembered hearing as a kid.
Then all at once he was home again, and much like it was every night, the silence that waited there for him was deafening.
He paused as he reached the steps that lead up to his porch and quickly he tried to think of someone he could ring to come over. Sookie was his first thought, but as established at the start of the night his kid sister was AWOL again with little to no sign of making an appearance any time soon. His next instinct would usually be to call up a girl, any girl, but since returning home from Dallas he'd had little to no desire to entertain female company of any kind.
Thinking of this brought him full circle to the one train of thought he tried to avoid above all others, but it was also the same which he found himself lost in night after night.
Those thoughts were that of Louisa Murphey.
Even the mere thought of Lou made his stomach contort and knees falter, neither sensation helped at all by his current blood alcohol level. He turned and sat on the bottom step of his porch, deciding it best to do so before he found himself falling up them as he often did.
With his elbows resting on his knees Jason looked down at his hands, trying to focus as he did on their calloused nature – it was no use though. All he could see was her face.
It was torturous really, because when he thought of her now he could never envision her smile; only that same broken expression that she'd worn the last time he'd seen her.
The expression that he had caused.
Of course people had been all too eager to tell him what had happened that night she came into Merlotte's and how almost everybody had shunned her, her waste of a father included. She should have known better than anyone that it was going to end badly, he thought. After all, out of all of them Lou had always been the one to detest the general backwards thinking of the Bon Temps locals.
His stomach knotted again to think that he was no better now than any of them.
In fact he could quite easily be considered worse.
It's still me...
The words rang in his head. In a bid to silence her voice he pushed the palms of his hands to either temple, pushing as hard as he could and focusing on the pressure like it was his only tether to sanity.
I'm still the same old Lou...
It was no use. The moment played on loop like a nightmare, and with every cycle he saw himself react in a different way. He would close the space between them and hold her. He'd insist that to him of all people she didn't need to justify that she was still the same girl whom he loved, because all he had to do was look at her to see that for himself. He took hold of her hands as he pressed a kiss to her lips, as he'd only dreamt he might be able to do again up until that moment. He sometimes even fell to his knees in front of her and sobbed, begging her for forgiveness for having not been there to protect her.
But the reality was that he had done none of those things.
Instead Jason had broken her, as he had time and time before, and he had done so without hesitation.
Now the question that sprung through his mind as he sat there on the porch, eyes closed and desperate to forget, was why?
Why had he done that?
She was gone now. No one had seen her since that first night in Merlotte's and no one had even bothered to ask where she might be. Whilst ever she was out of town she was one less threat for them all to worry over, and this he knew was the attitude everyone took in regards to her now. He seemed to be the only person who cared enough to want to know. He didn't even need specifics.
Just to know that she was okay would be enough.
With legs that felt as though they were made from lead he was going to try to stand and head on in to drown his thoughts with more whiskey than was advisable for any one man, before ultimately he would pass out on his couch and start the cycle that had become his life all over again in the morning, but just as he was about to do this a white figure landed with an abrupt gust of wind in front of him.
"Fuck!" He exclaimed as loud as his lungs would allow, feeling the invader before he saw them for his closed eyes. Needless to say they didn't remain that way for long, as his eyes soon shot open frantically as Jason scrambled as far back on his porch steps as he could.
Then the terror faded, as the person stood in front of him was no stranger.
"… Mr. Godric?" He asked, recognising the vampire instantly.
Of course the two hadn't seen one another since Dallas, but he would know the weird clothes and boy-like features anywhere. The only thing he lacked now, which had been the only other defining memory Jason had of him, was his calming glow. In fact he looked quite the opposite of calm, with eyes as wide and alert as Jason's and a sense of severity to his every movement.
"Mr Stackhouse," Godric greeted as he took steps forward, his tone as harsh as it was pressing. "My apologies to drop in like this, but please believe that had I any other choice, I wouldn't have."
Jason realised he was nodding back in response. To him it just seemed obvious now that it was better to be on their good side than their bad.
"It's uh- it's alright I guess." He stammered back as he stood, awkwardly brushing his hands against the thighs of his jeans as he did. "What can I do for you?" He added in a nonchalant tone that hardly matched the conversation.
"Your sister is in trouble," The smaller vampire replied with little to no hesitation. On queue Jason's gut dropped, and silently he made a promise to beat the ever loving crap out of Compton for dragging her into another one of his messes (or at least he assumed that's what had happened). "As is Lou."
If he thought his stomach had dropped before, it was nothing compared to the gaping hole that was left there now.
He needn't any kind of explanation following that. Context made no difference, because Jason could find himself walking into a tea party or a lion's den and he would do so with the same blind determination to help her.
He owed her that.
"Right," He replied after a moment, feeling as he did a new found invigoration course through him. "I'll go get my guns."
"Lou, you need to let them heal." Sookie tried to insist in a gentle tone as her hands found their way to the others shoulders, trying as she did to pull her away from the splintering walls.
She was talking about Lou's long since scarred and bloodied knuckles, the cause of which was evident by every destroyed surface inside their prison cell of a bedroom.
Several holes littered the walls, floors and doors where Lou over time had punched and clawed at the wood in a desperate bid to try and find a way out. She'd started with the doors after it became evident the handle wasn't an option, but after a few minutes of destruction she found the Edgington had accounted for that move. Beneath the wood the doors were lined with thick sheets of silver – immovable to any human, and unbearable to the touch of any vampire.
That was when she opted for the walls and floors instead, only to find over time that they too were lined seamlessly with the same offensive material. Lou thought somehow that if she just kept going sooner or later the blistering would lessen or she'd find some kind of weak spot that would somehow yield.
She was mistaken.
That didn't stop her though. Torturing herself with the agony of trying to escape despite there being no chance of doing so was still better than sitting there and doing nothing.
Another day had passed since she'd awoken in that room, and time in her opinion was running out. Every second she spent locked away was another second that the time of her own safety slowly ran out, and worse yet, she feared that Eric's had already expired.
That thought alone was enough to make her keep fighting.
If she thought about it too much it would break her, because the mere notion that anybody was hurting him and she could do nothing to help was too much to stomach. So instead Lou would do this. She would fight, and scream, and try with her every breath to get out of that room and back into his arms as quickly as she could. So many times he had come to her rescue, and she was to be damned if she wasn't going to try and do the same for him.
"I – don't – care." Lou bit back between laboured breaths, her arms having long grown weak. The exhaustion became evident when once again her hand grazed against one of the thick silver plates that lined the wall, and instantly a pained yelp ripped from her lips. For fear she might scream, Lou clamped her teeth down on her bottom lip, a low and uncontrollable growl running through her instead as she looped away from the wall and nursed another fresh wound.
Sookie seemed lost with what to do.
She hovered uncomfortably behind her, arms still outstretched as though she might hug her, but in the end she rightly thought better of it.
Her friend was in no mood for comfort of any kind, but more so than that, it hadn't escaped either of them that it had been days now since Lou had last since fed, and for a vampire as young as her that was a dangerous realisation to have.
No one had come to the room since they had been locked inside, which lead Lou to come to the unfortunate conclusion that Sookie may have spoken more truth than she initially meant too when she darkly joked that perhaps she had been put in there as a means to an end to keep up Lou's strength.
Considering the argument she'd had with Edgington over dinner a few evenings before she didn't doubt that this was one sick little game to him – a power play that was a signal of things to come, showing her once and for all that he could force her to do what he wanted, when he wanted, because unlike Lou he had the power to manipulate a situation to present with whatever outcome he wanted it to.
She would rather starve than harm Sookie, but that wasn't a choice she was in control of.
Give it another couple of hours and her feral instincts would override any logical thought process, and if she allowed it to get that point there'd be no stopping once her fangs found their way into the others supple skin.
Lou would bleed her dry.
Neither of them dared speak of this but it seemed a dawning danger to both, because as Lou took herself to one far corner of the room Sookie had the good sense to turn and sit herself down in the other. With her back nestled against the wall the brunette slowly sunk to the floor, eyes fluttering closed as she desperately tried to focus on anything other than the subtle sense of fresh heart beat in the room with her.
Eric. She could think of Eric.
Of course he was the easiest distraction. His eyes. His smile. His touch. It was so simple getting lost in every thought of him, but unfortunately those thoughts lead to the same conclusion that her thirst had - she had to get out of that room. And she had to do it soon.
"Ain't no way on gods earth is this gonna fuckin' work." Jason half laughed from the driver's seat as he watched people filing in and out of the dive bar a little farther up the road.
After Godric's untimely arrival things had come to an unfortunate stand-still for a while. Dawn had been encroaching and there wasn't enough time to cover everything that had happened as well as form a plan as to how to fix things, so as the age old vampire hid in the crawl space beneath his house to find some much needed rest, Jason had spent what felt like the longest day of his life sat upstairs and waiting for the sun to fall again.
Sookie and Lou were in trouble.
The thought was incomprehensible, and the fact that Godric's only soothing words before taking his rest, that things would be okay for now because 'they' needed them alive, didn't lessen his worry.
It felt like an eternity had passed before Godric finally rose again, but when he did he filled Jason in on much as he could, his explanation for the blanks in the story being that if he told him he would most certainly have to kill him. There was no playful cliché meant in his words either; if anything it served as a promise as to what might happen should he find out too much. Godric asked Jason to drive, explaining that the few hours it would take them to get to Mississippi (which evidently was where Sookie and Lou were) would be plenty of time to fill him in on the details he did need to know.
He told him that they had been visiting a very old and very important vampire when things had taken a turn for the worst, and everything had spun out of control rather quickly after that. Now said vampire had the girls, and he had very little intention of giving them back without some kind of fight. The questions that Jason followed with were easy enough to answer.
Why were they visiting in the first place? Wolves.
Needless to say the existence of werewolves was news to him, but Jason was self-aware enough to acknowledge the fact that he wasn't what people would call knowledgeable, so he was happy enough to accept this with very little explanation. When Godric elaborated that the wolves had paid them a rather unpleasant visit around a week prior he was met with another question.
Why would they be after them? Lou.
This part came vaguer than the rest, with the blunt response being that people wanted her because she was special now she was one of them.
"She's always been special." Jason replied without hesitation and a sense of bitterness at the notion that she was only important now she was a pair of fangs.
Godric merely smiled sadly in response before he nodded and diverted the topic.
Next came the plan, and this part much like the rest consisted of leaving Jason mostly in the dark. Evidently he was only needed for one element of all this, and that was to come of the rescue of the reinforcements they actually needed. As Godric informed him that he needed his help in retrieving one Eric Northman, he almost slammed his feet on the breaks in sheer astonishment. He'd come to help his sister and Lou after all – not the son of a bitch who he blamed above all others for the mess that had become his life.
Ever since Dallas he couldn't explain why, but in his heart he held Northman personally responsible for everything that had happened to Lou, despite her explaining rightly so that the blonde haired bastard had had little to no involvement with what happened to her. Perhaps his intuition told him otherwise and that was why he chose not to believe her. Perhaps it was because he'd been forced to see how the girl who he had always considered 'his' looked at him, and so he just needed a reason to hate him.
Either way, if he was in danger, he could rot for all Jason cared.
But evidently if they were to get Lou and Sookie back in one piece they would require the kind of man power that only the Viking had, so helping him first was a necessary evil towards helping them.
That was why they now found themselves sat outside the dive bar, the clientele for which can only be described as something straight from the worst clichés of how a biker should appear – all bandanas, leather jackets and untrimmed facial hair.
Godric wasted no time in explaining that this was in fact the primary hang-out for the wolves under the control of this big bad vamp, and it also so happened to be where Eric was being held.
That was where Jason came into things.
The vampire boy to his right couldn't enter – the tenants of the bar would be able to smell him coming from a mile off and would try to rip him to shreds on the spot at the orders of their owner. He needed a human to go inside and retrieve Northman in order for them to help the girls from there.
"It will work." Godric argued gently as he too watched through the window to the crowds in the distance. "All you need to do is-"
"Ask for Alcide." Jason interjected. He wasn't the sharpest tool in the box but he wasn't about to forget the name of the only ally he had waiting inside those walls, who ironically turned out to be of one of the barmen. He was one of the wolves too, but he was one who owed a debt to Northman (another vague factor, but one that Jason didn't care enough about to question).
He couldn't help but shake his head.
A year before he was a construction worker whose greatest trauma in life was paying the rent on time and keeping his hands to himself. Today he was about to walk willingly into some kind of supernatural cess pit, all in a bid to save a girl whom he was certain now hated him.
How times changed.
"If they eat me, remind the blondie bastard he owes me, yeah?" Jason said with a little too much sincerity, before he adopted his ever foolish now-or-never attitude and jumped out of his pick-up truck.
His actions from there were that of a man operating on autopilot, as the dawning realisation hit him that this was perhaps up there with the most idiotic things that he'd ever done. The only difference this time was that it was also one of bravest things Jason had ever done, and holding on to this was just about enough to keep his legs moving.
"Club members only." The burly bouncer barked at Jason once he was within hearing distance. The guy was covered head to toe in various inks, but the skin that wasn't covered in tattoos was worn and scarred. The hair of his beard was matted with what can only be described as various fluids – no doubt everything from beer to blood – and the shoulder length hair sprouting from his head didn't seem in a much better state. Despite his bedraggled exterior he still stood a whole head taller than Jason and possibly twice as wide too, so he had very little desire to piss the guy off.
"I'm here to see Alcide." He responded, praying harder than he ever had that the he could trust the word of the vampire he'd left in his car and that the name drop would somehow be enough for him to see the end of the night.
The bouncer hesitated a little, eyes running up and down Jason as though to assess whether or not he posed some kind of threat to them. After a couple of seconds he seemed to make his decision, as he took a step away from the door in a silent invitation for him to enter.
Jason did so with little hesitation for fear that it was subject to change, but the second he did he wished quite desperately that he'd taken a few seconds more to brace his senses for the assault that was about to be inflicted upon them.
The smell was by far the worst factor – a sickening mixture of stale beer, dried sweat, and quite ironically, musty dogs. It hit him in the back of the throat so abruptly it almost made him splutter in disgust, but Jason wasn't no sissy. Instead of boking as he thought he might, he took a long and deep inhale, telling himself as he did that the more he absorbed it the easier it would be to get used to it.
Visually it was like any other bar on a Thursday night, with dim lights and too many inebriated patrons weaving beneath them in a bid to find either another drink to drown themselves or a another body to find solace in. Both of these were familiar desires for Jason, so it was almost easy to adopt their thought process and blend in. After gathering his bearings he noted the bar on the far left wall of the room, and soon enough he managed to make his way over to it whilst attracting far less attention than he had anticipated. Perhaps that was why Godric had wanted his help after all – he knew just how insignificant anyone who wasn't a human viewed him.
"Hey," A towering figure from behind the bar greeted. Well, it was less of a friendly greeting and more a bid to get Jason's attention, but it worked all the same. When he looked over he couldn't help but be mildly taken aback, as his first and only thought was that someone like that could give even him a run for his money when it came to female attention. The man stood tall, his muscles bulging clearly beneath his tight fitting cheque shirt, and despite his salt and pepper hair giving him an air of maturity his sharp features were nothing but youthful.
"I'm looking for a guy – Alcide?" Jason hated how his voice rose at the end as though he questioned himself. "Godric sent me." This time as he spoke he made a conscious effort to add a bit of gravel to his voice, but it were his words rather than his tone that got a reaction.
The eyes of the bartender widened as his stance became stiff, looking back at him like he'd blasphemed within a church.
He answered Jason with no words. Instead he turned his head just enough for Jason to notice before nodding subtly to a door on the right hand wall beside the stage. Needless to say it took him a moment or two to catch up, what with him being the first to admit that intuition and inference weren't his fortes in life, but it soon hit Jason that was where he needed to go.
"I'll be there in 5." The bartender muttered just loud enough to be heard over the music whilst remaining quiet enough for the other patrons to remain blissfully unaware to the exchange happening.
This guy, he assumed, was the one he was looking for.
Jason nodded once before taking his queue to weave through the bar, eyes intent on the door and the door only. If he allowed himself to become distracted by one of the many scantily clad girls who wandered around him he was sure he'd go off topic entirely, so it was in everyone's best interests if he homed in on his tunnel vision.
Upon reaching the door he found, much to his relief, that it opened freely. What left him confused after this was the fact that it opened only into a small store cupboard that was void of anything but a shelf on the back wall that held cleaning products.
Perhaps the guy at the bar wasn't this Alcide after all...
Before he had chance to think twice about this it was too late, because the bartender followed him inside not even a minute later and firmly shut the door behind him.
"Are you trying to get us both fucking killed?" He hissed, regarding Jason with sheer distain. "Might as well have waltzed in here with a fucking neon sign asking for trouble."
"I uh - sorry." Jason stammered in response, any hopes of appearing tough in front of this stranger soon turning to shambles as he realised what a rookie error it was saying the name of the vampire they were all looking for. "He just said you'd help."
"Yeah, well you can tell all of them that I'm done after this, okay? Sooner I wash my hands of Eric-fucking-Northman the better." Alcide spat back bitterly.
"You and me both, bud." Jason couldn't help but quip in return, the fleeting and somewhat welcome thought passing through his mind of a world without Northman in it.
He was sure it'd be a thing of beauty.
His response seemed to make Alcide soften, if only a little, as Jason's words seemed to trigger the realisation that they were as begrudging as one another to be involved in this situation.
"What's he got on you?" He asked him curiously, to which Jason could only shrug.
"My girl… Kinda." He replied without much thought, as it hardly even occurred to him that he had absolutely no right to refer to Lou as such any more. Were he questioned on it he would boil it down to the fact that calling her as much was a force of habit after 6 years, but luckily the other man wasn't in the know enough to do so.
For reasons unknown it made Alcide chuckle in a defeated way.
"It's always a fucking girl..." He muttered, though something told Jason that he was talking mostly to himself by this point.
With a small and somewhat exasperated sigh he nodded his head to the side, gesturing for the smaller man to get out of the way. Jason did so gladly, allowing Alcide the room he needed to walk around him and place both his large hands on either side of the shelfing unit. For a second it wasn't clear what he was trying to do, but with a firm push the shelf moved to the left to reveal a small and dimly lit room behind it.
"Nice..." Jason muttered, unable even in that situation to overlook the fact that a trapped door was pretty fucking cool.
"There's another door in the back that leads into the alley - after you unhook them you need to get them out as soon as you can, cause it ain't gonna take them long to realise something's amiss." Alcide advised, heading as he did back to the door that lead into the bar. "And remember - no more favours." Jason nodded back though he'd already decided he wasn't getting involved in whatever debt he owed the vampires - rather this stranger's headache than his.
But with that Alcide looked once more to the hidden room, before he turned his back and exited the same way he'd come in.
Now it was all down to Jason, and honestly, he'd be a bare faced liar if he said he had even the slightest clue what he was doing. Human instinct told him not to go into that room, but he knew he had to.
If he wanted Lou and Sook safe, he just had to.
So after theoretically putting his big girl panties back on, he turned on his heels and marched, heading straight into the room without a second thought as to what was awaiting him in there.
The second he entered he wished he'd had that second thought.
The room itself was bare - just four concrete walls, a concrete floor, and a single steel door at the back. What was inside the room was all together more horrifying.
Eric Northman sat slumped unconscious on a wooden chair with two drips leading into either arm. The first seemed to be carrying liquid to him - a clear substance that came from a bag hung up that had the word DIAZAPAM printed in bold letters across it. A sedative, Jason realised, having tried his fair share over the years. That would at least explain why he appeared lifeless. The other and all together more horrifying tube seemed to be extracting something from him.
Blood, to be specific.
He had heard plenty in the news about stuff like this - people holding vampires against their will in order to harvest their blood. He wasn't ashamed to admit that once upon a time he'd been a faithful patron to one such person, but that was a time he preferred not to think about, in part because the little habit had done its fair share to bankrupt him.
He dreaded to imagine what the blood of someone as old as Northman would be worth.
But it seemed he wasn't the only source of income for this illicit little ring, as sat unexpectedly beside him in the exact same predicament was one Bill Compton.
"You've gotta be fucking kidding me." Jason said indignantly, silently cursing Godric for having handily neglected the part where he was responsible for saving his sister's boyfriend as well. Had he known he would have still gone through with it of course - it was the only way to help the people who he actually cared for - but still, were it down to him he'd leave the both of them there.
They brought nothing but trouble to their lives. It'd be in everybody's best interest if they were drained dry.
But alas, as nice a notion as it was to think of them dying in that room, he had a job to do, and Jason Stackhouse was nothing if not determined once he had his mind set to something.
He wasted no time in walking over and pulling the drips carrying the sedatives out of both men's arms, before lifting the blood bags off the hooks at either of their sides and squeezing them as hard as he could without puncturing the plastic.
Perhaps he was getting a sick kind of satisfaction as he realised just how much it hurt to have liquid forcibly pumped back into your body via an IV, but hey, he was only human.
"C'mon y'great big blood sucking dickheads..." He muttered, watching both of them for any signs of stirring. When there were none he squeezed harder.
Eric flinched first.
"There y'go, c'mon, I don't got all day." He warned, kicking both of them in the shins as he did. This seemed to do something, as both their heads lulled back at the same moment whilst their eyes tried to flutter open. As if the timing couldn't be worse he could hear a muffled raucous coming from inside the bar behind them, which only fuelled his adrenaline as he remembered Alcide's warning that it wouldn't be long before they worked out something was wrong. Jason could hardly take his eyes off the door in the back as the noises got louder. "Wake the fuck up." He urged both of them through gritted teeth, finding it pertinent to kick them again. Bill he hit. Eric he did not, as much to his surprise the far taller and much stronger vampire had found it in him to stand.
Upon realising this Jason looked back, his heart sinking into his gut as the Viking he loved to loath looked down at him with what can only be described as pure and seething hatred.
"What are you doing here?" He asked in a tone that was all together too calm, but which made him far more intimidating. Maybe that was his goal, or maybe it was simply because Eric hardly had the strength to stand, let alone growl.
"Saving your sorry ass, that's what." Jason retorted foolishly as he shoved Eric's blood bag back at him, making him take hold of it as to free his own hand long enough so that he could walk over to a still mostly unconscious Bill and lift him from his seat. He was far younger than Eric so it would take him much longer to heal, but this wasn't something that Jason knew. All he was aware of was the fact that his sister would never look at him again if he left him there to die. "Now if you don't mind getting the door, we need to be leaving." He added as he lifted one of Bill's arms over his shoulders and wrapped one of his behind his back, carrying as he did the majority of his weight.
Eric, who still felt the uncomfortable haze of the drugs in his system and an unbearable weight across his body from his lack of blood, found it hard to follow what was happening, but there was one thought strong enough to drive him on.
Louisa.
Following the Stackhouse boy's indication he turned clumsily on his heels to see the door in question behind them, and as it hadn't in the past, his body refused to fail him now. Even at his weakest he was strong enough to walk over and rip the door from its hinges, sending it flying across the narrow alleyway. Whoever had made that little cell with the intention of it being a blood farm clearly hadn't accounted for it ever housing a vampire as old as him, but that came as no surprise. In his experience the wolves had never been the most forward thinking of creatures.
He walked out into the seasonably warm night air, no longer paying Jason any notice as he stumbled out after him with a still stirring Bill wedged to his side - they could stay there for all he cared.
His eyes swam as though oil had been poured into them, blurring every object in sight. All apart from one.
A small, white figure that landed with a gentle thud only a few inches in front of him.
"Godric." Eric said his name like a sigh of relief, having known from the second he saw his Maker flee the home of Russell Edgington that he did not do so out of cowardice. He always had a plan, and he feared that without it he most definitely would have still been hooked up to his own death. There was no thought behind his actions as he all but fell forward, the smaller but stronger boy catching him with ready hands and holding his weight with ease. "Louisa... Where's Lou-"
"Shhh my child," Godric soothed gently "We'll have her home soon." Eric was sure that were he in any fit state to do so he would have demanded to know why in the name of god he hadn't gone for her first, but he was too weak, a fact that hadn't escaped Godric either. "First you need to feed... Just enough to get you moving again." As he spoke his attention turned to that of Jason, who stood a little further behind them and did so entirely oblivious to the connotations of the conversation they were having.
Eric glanced lazily over his shoulder. Truth be told were he not so desperately in need he'd rather sink a bottle of Tru Blood than have the displeasure of tasting the blood of the Stackhouse boy, but desperate times.
The penny seemed to drop a little later for Jason, but in the end when it did he chastised himself for not the first time that night for not getting all the details of his role in this little plan before he blindly followed.
"...I swear to god, you kill me, and I'll haunt your ass til the world comes to a fucking end."
As the thirst grew gradually more unbearable, time seemed to move slower.
Lou hadn't gathered the strength the move from the corner of the room since she had sat there in solitary a few hours before. With every slight movement in the air Sookie's scent seemed to grow stronger and stronger, and with each passing second it became all the more enticing.
"Just take a little." Sookie tried to insist for not the first time. Lou didn't doubt that it was hard for her to see her suffering, but she would have given just about anything to make the offers stop.
"No." She responded firmly through gritted teeth, refusing to so much as look.
"I've fed Bill before-"
"Bill is a hundred times older than me, Sookie," Lou interjected, having to close her eyes as she did for fear that so much as looking at her was going to tip her over the edge. Never before had she fought so hard against something as natural an issue as the thirst was to vampires. Once or twice she'd felt the familiar scratch in the back of her throat when she'd left it a little too long between bottles of Tru Blood, but it had never gotten to this point before - where her breaths burnt her lungs and her skin felt as though it was crawling with fire ants. "...I've never even fed from a human before, let alone whatever you are. I wouldn't be able to stop."
This Lou knew for a sickening fact.
It was the majority of the reason why she hadn't been allowed to return to Bon Temps after she had first been turned. The blood lust of a young vampire is erratic at the best of times, and it's well known that once they have a taste for quenching it there's no stopping them. Try as she might to deny this side of herself, Lou had come to terms with being vampire a long time before being trapped in that room, and in doing so accepted that this was something she could face for years to come.
She had just never anticipated for it to be this agonising.
"You'll die if you don't eat." Sookie said in a similar tone to that of a mother chastising their child for leaving their greens on their plate.
"Then I'll die." Lou exhaled, having already come to terms with such an outcome and being quite accepting of it. The only issue with that was that long before her body would allow itself to starve instinct would kick in, and she would feed on Sookie whether she wanted to or not.
As her limbs twitched she realised that time was growing closer than she had hoped it would.
"Fuck..." She whispered to herself, her head shaking as she said it because subconsciously she almost couldn't believe that this was happening.
Lou had known that Edgington would torture her, but not like this. She didn't think anyone sick enough to all but force her to kill someone she loved in the name of proving a point, but clearly in that respect she had underestimated him. In turn however it seemed that Edgington had underestimated her as well, because anyone who had crossed paths with Lou even once in their life would tell you she would rather die than give someone she hated the satisfaction of winning.
It was this thought that made her snap, but not in the way she thought she might.
With this new found resentment coursing through her she stood in an instant, eyes shooting open to see a rather terrified looking Sookie sat as far away from her as she could in the small room. It almost looked as though she thought her friend was finally going to take her up on her incessant offers and for a second was regretting extending them, but the situation became clearer soon enough.
One of the benefits of her little rampage against the decor of the room over the past two days was that Lou now had a number of wooden splints at her disposal, so after surveying them for a second she moved and grabbed the sharpest looking plank from the floor, before moving to close the space between them and extending it in Sookie's direction.
"Stake me." She ordered.
Only silence followed.
"I said, stake me." Lou repeated firmly, throwing the make-shift stake into the others lap as she spoke.
"W-What? No - no!" Sookie stuttered back in feeble argument, refusing to even touch the offensive weapon that was before her as she violently shook her head in protest.
"If you don't I'm going to kill you, Sook." Lou explained rather matter of factly. She had to draw in a deep breath and hold it before moving, for fear that Sookie's scent in addition to the warmth of her skin would send her into a frenzy, but after she was sure she'd composed herself she grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her upright, ensuring as she did to catch the stake with her other hand and push it firmly into Sookie's open one.
Once the blonde was stood, Lou took a few steps back.
"Y'hear that?!" She shouted in the direction of the still locked doors, knowing that there had been guards on the other side since the moment they'd shut them in. "Either open those fucking doors right now, or she's gonna drive a stake so far into my chest my god damn puddle's gonna be coughing up splinters!"
It was the last ditch attempt of a desperate woman; giving their captors the ultimatum of keeping them there, or clearing up the mess her death would leave behind. At the very least it was worth a shot, Lou justified to herself, because they all knew that she was of no value to them dead.
All that really mattered though was making sure Sookie would do it.
"Five!" She roared, sparing the doors one last glance before she looked back to friend, who seemed to register what was happening but still seemed utterly distraught about what was unfolding. She too had registered hours before that unless they were freed it was going to come down to her or Lou, but at a guess she hadn't even began to contemplate what she might be forced to do should time start to run out.
"Four!" Lou continued to count as she still maintained Sookie's dark and teary gaze. She wasn't sure she had the nerve to do it - in fact she was almost certain she didn't - so she took a step closer so she was within arm's length.
"I don't want to..." Sookie said, her voice pleading.
"You have to, Sook... Three!" Outside she heard footsteps for the first time in hours, and doors slamming open and closed. "Two!" Lou reached out and took hold of Sookie's wrist once again, lifting it in the air as to align the tip of the stake with her still heart. "Please... Please." It was her turn to beg now. The footsteps were drawing closer, so whatever plan Lou had come up with seemed to be working, but the chance they might actually get out had slipped her mind. After all, what would happen if they did open the doors? They would still be trapped in a nightmare - one that promised to only get worse for Lou the longer she lived it. Surely it was better to die there, in that moment, whilst she still held onto some semblance of who she was.
Whilst she could do so knowing that her life had been a happy one.
"Please..." She whispered one last time. This time as Sookie paused the tears fell, but she didn't shake her head. Instead she stood, and with shaking hands drew the stake back so that when she delivered the blow she would do so with enough force for it to reach her heart.
It should not have been relief to see her do this, but that was exactly what washed over Lou, bringing her the first sense of calm she'd felt in days.
"It's okay... Really, it is." Lou quietly reassured her.
Sookie nodded, and in turn the small brunette smiled gently as the thought of but one man flashed through her mind.
It wasn't surprising that her thoughts should turn back to Eric in such a moment, but god was she glad that they did.
"... One!" Sookie cried, closing her eyes as she did so she couldn't see what she was about to do. Lou followed suit with her smile unwavering, imagining as she did cool hands on either side of her face and lips pressed against her hairline.
They needn't have their eyes open though, to feel the doors beside them finally swing open.
well... there it is! i hope you enjoyed it! as much of a fuckboi i paint him to be i actually adore jason so it was so much fun to write him again. now we just have to wait to see who's on the other side of the door!
also apologies for the lack of louxsookie butt whooping that i'd promised. this chapter took a different turn to what it was initially meant to but i'm actually quite happy with how it turned out, so instead i promise to compensate with better butt whooping.
as always thank you endlessly for the reviews, every time i get one it makes my day, so please know whenever you leave one you're getting all my love and good vibes channelled your way xoxo